It’s kind of hard to believe that First Man has been in theaters for less than a week. Hasn’t the controversy surrounding this movie been raging for a small eternity? Damien Chazelle’s biodrama about Neil Armstrong, the late astronaut and American icon, has already inspired an entire awards season’s worth of hot-take…

Blade Runner 2049 was clearly a big, complicated project, if only because we’ve heard a lot about the different iterations it went through and the details that were changed late in production. We already heard that it was originally four hours long, though that version was never meant for the public, and now Collider has…

“Why do you think space travel is important?” a NASA bigwig asks Neil Armstrong during the biggest job interview of his life. It’s all about a change in perspective, the future astronaut replies—about finding a new way to see the world, and maybe everything else, too. First Man, Damien Chazelle’s grippingly…

Just about a year ago, Blade Runner 2049 editor Joe Walker revealed that director Denis Villeneuve’s original cut of the film was four hours long and split into two parts, with the first half focusing on Ryan Gosling’s K learning about who he is (or who he thinks he is) and the second half starting after the high-tech…

There’s an escalator at the Scotiabank Theatre, the venue where just about all of the TIFF press and industry screenings are held, that’s notorious for breaking down. It goes several stories up at a steep angle, like the long slope of a particularly extreme rollercoaster, and its habit of grinding to a halt (of…

Damien Chazelle’s First Man—the Neil Armstrong biopic that sees Ryan Gosling giving a pensive, internal take on the man history books have since immortalized as Ol’ One Giant Leap-o—had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival this week, drawing strong praise for Chazelle’s direction, and the lead performances…

Seeing performers break on SNL can be fun, assuming it’s not just Jimmy Fallon ruining every sketch he’s in. It shows that, despite all the glitz and glamor, these professional comedians are still having fun. It’s also a reminder that the show is actually live. But if you thought SNL cast members broke a lot during…

Welcome back to Trailer Happy Hour, where the film promos and teasers glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate, destined to be lost in time, like tears in the rain. (Time to click.) Today, we’ve got Damien Chazelle trying to eke drama out of one of the most notable success stories in all of human history, some…

For all useful purposes, Gene Wilder was Willy Wonka; his twinkle-eyed portrayal of the Roald Dahl chocolatier was one of the finest performances of a career that didn’t lack for them, tapping into his natural showmanship, warmth, and unpredictability to create a character who seemed capable of pretty much anything at…

After 35 years of science-fiction movies only inspired by—or blatantly derivative of—Ridley Scott’s landmark dystopian noir, they finally made another Blade Runner: a nearly three-hour, big-budget art movie masquerading as a blockbuster, starring Ryan Gosling as a new era’s robot-hunting answer to Harrison Ford (who…

“I just jazzed really good with the guys.”

Blade Runner 2049 begins on a farm in broad daylight. It’s what you would call a dramatic change of scenery. Before now—which is to say, for the decades it took Hollywood to get this long-awaited sequel off the ground—Blade Runner was basically synonymous with nighttime and the city. Though set in a sleek, bleak…